Wanderlei Silva is fighting this weekend, and other common MMA lies

Wanderlei Silva got the MMA world good, you guys. Oh man, did he ever.

The PRIDE legend and UFC whateverweight took advantage of the confusion surrounding the UFC on FUEL TV 9 main event and perpetrated an April Fools’ Day joke that got us all talking. And what a complex little ruse it was, too. Here, let me walk you through it step by step, just so you can appreciate its many intricacies.

First, Silva tweeted that he had agreed to replace Alexander Gustafsson in the main event of the UFC’s show in Stockholm this weekend, which he knew to be untrue. Then, when MMA news outlets started contacting him to ask if it was true, he lied to them. He gave interviews about it, even. He explained how he was packing his bags for Sweden that very instant. Even Gustafsson’s planned opponent, Gegard Mousasi, seemed like he was buying it. He accepted the fight on social media, and, one assumes, dedicated at least a little time to thinking and/or planning for this brand new matchup.

Oh, Wand. You jokester. Give me a moment to wipe these tears of laughter (or, you know, bitter disappointment) from my eyes. I’ll be right back, probably wearing the grim countenance of a man who has clearly just been a party to a hilarious joke.

I guess we can’t get too mad at Silva. He’s mostly guilty of a breach in April Fools’ Day etiquette. See, the way it’s supposed to work is that you get someone to briefly believe some not wholly inconceivable untruth, use it to reel them in just enough, then shout “April Fools’!” as you point and laugh and they smirk and hate you. Ideally, this entire process should take no more than 10 minutes. This is what separates the prank from the lie.

If I tell you I backed into your car this morning and then laugh at you once you run out to the parking lot to check, I have pranked you (also I have proved myself to be an unimaginative jerk, but whatever). If I tell you I will give you a ride home from work today but instead I leave you stranded and show up the next day going, “Aha, got you good!” I should probably not be too surprised to learn that we are no longer friends.

One of the rules of April Fools’ Day is that you don’t get to say, “No seriously, this is not an April Fools’ Day joke.” If the person you are attempting to fool asks if you are attempting to fool them, then your prank has failed, and you should give it up. To do otherwise is to abuse that person’s trust, which is when you go from being a fun-loving jokester to an unfunny liar.

Another one of the rules of April Fools’ Day is that you must reveal your joke before the end of the day. While April 1 may be a whimsical day for all manner of mischief, April 2 is just plain old Tuesday.

And we are not amused on Tuesday, Mr. Silva.

If anyone else had pulled this crap, we might be more enraged than mildly ticked off. Silva is one of this sport’s warmest, most beloved personalities, so it’s hard to think there was any malice at work here. He probably really would take the fight, and now that Gustafsson is officially out, he should feel honor-bound to step in if asked.

Regardless, it’s more likely that he just didn’t quite understand the difference between a good April Fools’ joke and a bad one, and he definitely didn’t consider the unintended consequences.

For instance, what’s going to happen the next time he wants to be taken seriously by the good people at Tatame, which got burned big time by his commitment to this joke? It’s one thing to screw around on Twitter. When you lie to reporters who are trying to do their jobs is when you deal a lasting blow to your own credibility.

More importantly, what’s Silva going to say the next time he sees Gegard Mousasi, who was gracious and game when he accepted the fake fight on Twitter? Is that really a cool thing to do to a fellow fighter who is a few days out from a main event bout and trying to get his game face on? Is that something Silva would have had a sense of humor about if the tables were turned?

The more I think about Silva’s prank gone wrong, the more I think about how this sort of thing is not that uncommon in this business. I mean, sure, it’s uncommon for it to be this obvious and extensive, but ask anyone in the MMA media and they’ll tell you they have people lie to them all the time. What’s more, they often get lied to by the very same people who will later complain about the lack of professionalism and standards in the MMA media.

Promoters do it. Fighters do it. Managers, my god, do they ever do it. While there are certainly some honest characters in this business, there are also plenty who are willing to use the media to advance their own agenda by any means necessary. If their message doesn’t come off the way they want, they blame the messenger. They want their lies to be printed as facts, but let someone else’s conflicting version of the truth make it into a story and they’re quick to denounce all these hack websites.

This isn’t a plea for pity on behalf of the poor, poor MMA media. A big part of the job is sorting through other people’s lies in order to get to the truth. That’s what you should expect from us. At the same time, if you think about the predictable life cycle of this Gustafsson story, you soon discover why that can be so difficult at times.

Here we have a main event fighter who suffers a cut in training that jeopardizes his participation in the bout. The regulatory body responsible for clearing him to fight says it almost certainly won’t, so the fight seems to be off. But, as UFC President Dana White says, it’s never official until you hear it from him, and he said the fight was still on (or at least, wasn’t 100 percent off). Another fighter says he’s been contacted about stepping in as a replacement. The UFC says it isn’t true, but it wouldn’t be the first time a fight promoter has obscured the truth in order to hold an event together. It wouldn’t be the first time the UFC has lied to the media, only to then criticize the media for not having the facts that it has done its best to obscure.

So what’s the big difference here, in the curious case of Wanderlei Silva’s fake fight? This time someone actually admitted to making it all up. April Fools’!

Savor that closure while you can. That’s the part you aren’t likely to get any other time of year.

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